1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disc cartridge protecting member including an aperture closing plate which is to be installed removably on a disc cartridge housing a disc such as an optical disc or the like as an information recording medium and which closes an aperture through which part of the disc is to be exposed to outside in a range between inner and outer radii thereof and a write and/or read unit is to face the disc, and to a disc cartridge with the protective member.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, many types of disc cartridges are used. Each of them has a disc-shaped recording medium such as optical disc housed rotatably in a body thereof, and it is to be loaded in a disc recording and/or playback apparatus with the disc-shaped recording medium being kept housed in the cartridge body. The disc cartridge of this type can protect the disc-shaped recording medium housed therein, and facilitate loading and unloading of the disc-shaped recording medium into and from the disc recording and/or playback apparatus.
The above disc cartridge has formed therein a write and/or read aperture through which part of the signal recording area of, for example, an optical disc housed in the cartridge body is exposed to outside in a range between inner and outer radii thereof. An optical pickup or a magnetic head of a write/read means provided at the disc recording and/or playback apparatus faces the write and/or read aperture and writes or reads information signals to or from the optical disc by scanning the signal recording area.
However, if the write and/or read aperture formed in the cartridge body is left open, dust will possibly come into the cartridge body and contaminate the optical disc during storage of the disc cartridge or foreign matter coming into the cartridge body will possibly damage the optical disc during insertion or ejection of the optical disc into or from the disc recording and/or playback apparatus.
To overcome the above problems, the disc cartridge has installed thereon a shutter member to open and close the write and/or read aperture. Since the shutter member closes the write and/or read aperture while the disc cartridge is being stored or while the disc cartridge is not loaded in the disc recording and/or playback apparatus, the optical disc housed in the cartridge body can positively be protected.
A disc cartridge of this type to which the shutter member to open and close the write and/or read aperture is removably installed is disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application JP 2003-109350.